Hayabusa2 is a Japanese mission to collect a sample from asteroid Ryugu and return it to Earth in 2020.

Hayabusa2 imaged its explosive-packed SCI experiment after deployment on 5 April with both thermal and optical cameras. JAXA says SCI separated from Hayabusa2 at about 20 centimeters per second, fell towards Ryugu for 40 minutes, and detonated about 300 meters above the surface. A detail I found particularly fascinating was that due to Ryugu's 7.6-hour rotation period, Hayabusa2 had to drop SCI about 30 degrees east of its target region!

JAXA / Edited by Jason Davis

Hayabusa2 SCI deployment

This animation shows Hayabusa2 deploying its SCI explosives package 500 meters above Ryugu on 4 April 2019. The frames were captured every 2 seconds by Hayabusa2's Thermal Infrared Imager and have been sped up.

After deploying SCI, Hayabusa2 fled behind Ryugu to avoid any debris from either the explosive device itself or material flying off the surface. The spacecraft was about 1 kilometer to the west and 3.5 kilometers behind Ryugu when detonation occured. DCAM3, the small camera Hayabusa2 left behind to watch the explosion and relay pictures, worked exactly as planned. Its analog camera worked for 20 minutes and captured 500 images before the battery ran out, while the digital camera worked for 3 hours and 20 minutes.

Compare this image from the digital camera with a 2017 rendering of what scientists thought it might look like. Not bad:

JAXA

Hayabusa2 SCI impact (DCAM3 digital camera)

Hayabusa2's deployable DCAM3 digital camera caught this view of debris spreading from Ryugu approximately 3 seconds after the SCI experiment detonated on 5 April 2019.

Saiki et. al (2017)

Hayabusa2 simulated DCAM3 view

A simulated view of what DCAM3 might see during the Hayabusa2 SCI experiment.

After the SCI detonation, Hayabusa2 flew on a long, looping track that took it more than 100 kilometers from Ryugu. JAXA confirmed the spacecraft returned to its 20-kilometer home position on 20 April, and on 23 April it began descending to a height of just 1.6 kilometers to search for the crater it made. The crater ended up being easy to find!

JAXA, The University of Tokyo, Kochi University, Rikkyo University, Nagoya University, Chiba Institute of Technology, Meiji University, The University of Aizu, AIST

Hayabusa2 SCI impact before and after

This animation shows a 20-meter wide crater created on Ryugu after Hayabusa2's SCI experiment struck the surface with a copper impactor on 5 April 2019. The before and after pictures were taken on 22 March and 25 April 2019. The images were captured using the spacecraft's Optical Navigation Camera - Telescopic.

The area affected by the blast is roughly 20 meters wide—much bigger than JAXA scientists expected it to be. "We did not expect such a big alternation so a lively debate has been initiated in the project!" the Hayabusa2 Twitter account reported.

JAXA is now considering whether to collect a second sample for return to Earth, either from the newly created crater or a different location. That sample collection wouldn't happen until June or later. The spacecraft is set to leave Ryugu in November or December 2019, and return to Earth in late 2020.

Comments & Sharing

Comments

This is why the universe can't have nice things. It leaves a planetoid parked neatly away from everything and when it gets back, someone has put a huge dent in it.

Bob Ware: 2019/05/04 07:48 CDT

Thanks Jason. Hopefully they will decide to grab the newer material since that would be geologically better sample to grab. The deeper the older, better preserved in other words.

Marco: 2019/05/07 07:13 CDT

Hi Jason. The Japanese language press conference showed only three images from the deployable camera. However, one of those images had a time stamp of 25 seconds. I thought the fact that a plume was still visible and of the same conical cross section, size and brightness would be a very important scientific observation.
Is there any word *at all* regarding the science of a plume with such a long duration?
Regards, Marco Parigi